William Nicholson - [Wind on Fire 01] Read online

  Praise for THE WIND SINGER

  Winner of the Smarties Prize Gold Award and the Blue Peter Book Award

  ‘This is a truly extraordinary book that will haunt you’

  Daily Telegraph

  ‘Positively surreal imagery, a fast-moving adventure and a cutting satire all in one. An original and striking read’

  Melvin Burgess

  ‘. . . A gripping read . . . A beautifully narrated, warm thriller of a book, full of inventiveness, action and passion’

  Guardian

  ‘A lyrical, evocative and powerful story’

  Kate Agnew

  ‘. . . A truly imaginative, fantastical and distinctive adventure story that grips from the very beginning and absolutely refuses to let go’

  Amazon

  ‘An accesible, rebellious and fast-paced adventure, and, as you would expect from the author of Shadow lands, a heart-wringing celebration of love’

  Sunday Times

  ‘. . . A potent mix of thundering adventure and purposeful fantasy’

  Guardian

  ‘A page-turning quest adventure that crackles off the page’

  Books Magazine

  ‘. . . A story that delves deeper into human nature and relationships’

  Bookseller

  Books by William Nicholson

  The Wind on Fire Trilogy

  The Wind Singer

  Slaves of the Mastery

  Firesong

  The Noble Warriors Trilogy

  Seeker

  Jango

  Noman

  For older readers

  Rich and Mad

  First published in Great Britain 2000

  This edition published 2011

  by Egmont UK Limited

  239 Kensington High Street

  London W8 6SA

  Text copyright © 2000 William Nicholson

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted

  ISBN 978 1 4052 3969 1

  eBook ISBN 978 1 7803 1210 1

  www.egmont.co.uk

  www.williamnicholson.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,Or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner

  Egmont is passionate about helping to preserve the world’s remaining ancient forests. We only use paper from legal and sustainable forest sources, so we know where every single tree comes from that goes into every paper that makes up every book.

  This book is made from paper certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), an organisation dedicated to promoting responsible management of forest resources. For more information on the FSC, please visitwww.fsc.org. To learn more about Egmont’s sustainable paper policy, please visit www.egmont.co.uk/ethical.

  Contents

  Long ago

  1 Baby Pinpin makes her mark

  2 Kestrel makes a horrible friend

  3 Bad words said loud

  4 Practising for Maroon

  5 A warning from the Chief Examiner

  6 Special Teaching

  7 The Emperor weeps

  8 The Hath family shamed

  9 Escape from Aramanth

  10 In the salt caves

  11 The mudnut harvest

  12 A Queen remembers

  13 The Hath family punished

  14 Return of the old children

  15 Prisoners of Ombaraka

  16 The wind battle

  17 The Hath family fights back

  18 Crack-in-the-land

  19 Mumpo goes wrong

  20 Into the fire

  21 The march of the Zars

  22 The Hath family broken

  23 The Scourge of the Plains

  24 The last High Examination

  Long ago

  At the time the strangers came, the Manth people were still living in the low mat-walled shelters that they had carried with them in their hunting days. The domed huts were clustered around the salt mine that was to become the source of their wealth. This was long before they had built the great city that stands above the salt caverns today. One high summer afternoon, a band of travellers came striding out of the desert plains, and made camp nearby. They wore their hair long and loose, men and women alike, and moved slowly and spoke quietly, when they spoke at all. They traded a little with the Manth, buying bread and meat and salt, paying with small silver ornaments that they themselves had made. They caused no trouble, but their near presence was somehow uncomfortable. Who were they? Where had they come from? Where were they going? Direct questions produced no answers: only a smile, a shrug, a shake of the head.

  Then the strangers were seen to be at work, building a tower. Slowly a wooden structure took shape, a platform higher than a man, on which they constructed a second narrower tower, out of timber beams and metal pipes. These pipes were all of different sizes, and bundled together, like the pipes of an organ. At their base, they opened out into a ring of metal horns. At their upper end, they funnelled together to form a single cylinder, like a neck, and then fanned out again to end in a ring of large leather scoops. When the wind blew, the scoops caught it and the entire upper structure rotated, swinging round to face the strongest gusts. The swirling air was funnelled through the neck to the ranked pipes, to emerge from the horns as a series of meaningless sounds.

  The tower had no obvious purpose of any kind. For a while it was a curiosity, and the people would stare at it as it creaked this way and that. When the wind blew hard, it made a mournful moaning that was comical at first, but soon became tiresome.

  The silent travellers offered no explanation. It seemed they had come to the settlement with the sole purpose of building this odd structure, because when it was done, they rolled up their tents and prepared to move on.

  Before leaving, their leader took out a small silver object, and climbed the tower, and inserted it into a slot in the structure’s neck. It was a tranquil summer dawn, the day the travellers departed, and the air was still. The metal pipes and horns were silent as they strode away across the desert plains. The Manth people were left as baffled as when they had arrived, staring at the overgrown scarecrow they had left behind.

  That night, as they slept, the wind began to blow, and a new sound entered their lives. They heard it in their sleep, and woke smiling, without knowing why. They gathered in the warm night air, and listened in joy and wonder.

  The wind singer was singing.

  1

  Baby Pinpin makes her mark

  ‘Sagahog! Pompaprune! Saga-saga-HOG!’

  Bowman Hath lay in bed listening to the muffled sounds of his mother oathing in the bathroom next door. From far away across the roofs of the city floated the golden boom of the bell in the tower of the Imperial Palace: mmnang! mmnang! It was sounding the sixth hour, the time when all Aramanth awoke. Bowman opened his eyes and lay gazing at the daylight glowing in the tangerine curtains. He realised that he was feeling sad. What is it this time? he thought to himself. He looked ahead to the coming day in school, and his stomach tightened, the way it always did; but this was a different feeling. A kind of sorrowing, as if for something lost. But what?

  His twin sister Kestrel was still asleep in the bed next to him, within reach of his outstretched arm. He listened to her snuffly sleep-breathing for a few moments, then sent her a wake-up thought. He waited till he heard her grumpy answering groan. Then he counted silently to five, and rolled out of bed.

  Crossing the hall
on the way to the bathroom, he stopped to greet his baby sister Pinpin. She was standing up in her cot in her fuzzy night-suit, sucking her thumb. Pinpin slept in the hall because there was no room for a cot in either of the two bedrooms. The apartments in Orange District were really too small for a family of five.

  ‘Hallo, Pinpin,’ he said.

  Pinpin took her thumb out of her mouth and her round face lit up with a happy smile.

  ‘Kiss,’ she said.

  Bowman kissed her.

  ‘Hug,’ she said.

  Bowman hugged her. As he cuddled her soft round body, he remembered. Today was the day of Pinpin’s first test. She was only two years old, too little to mind how well or badly she did, but from now till the day she died she would have a rating. That was what was making him sad.

  Tears started to push into Bowman’s eyes. He cried too easily, everyone told him so, but what was he to do? He felt everything too much. He didn’t mean to, but when he looked at somebody else, anybody else, he found he knew what they were feeling, and all too often it was a fear or a sadness. And then he would understand what it was they were afraid of or sad about, and he would feel it too, and he would start to cry. It was all very awkward.

  This morning what made him sad wasn’t what Pinpin was feeling now, but what he knew she would feel one day. Now there were no worries in her sunny little heart. Yet from today, she would begin, at first only dimly, but later with sharp anxiety, to fear the future. For in Aramanth, life was measured out in tests. Every test brought with it the possibility of failure, and every test successfully passed led to the next, with its renewed possibility of failure. There was no escape from it, and no end. Just thinking about it made his heart almost burst with love for his little sister. He hugged her tight as tight, and kissed and kissed her merry cheeks.

  ‘Love Pinpin,’ he said.

  ‘Love Bo,’ said Pinpin.

  A sharp rending sound came from the bathroom, followed by yet another explosion of oaths.

  ‘Sagahog! Bangaplop!’

  And then the familiar wailing lament:

  ‘O, unhappy people!’

  This had been the cry of the great prophet Ira Manth, from whom his mother was directly, though distantly, descended. The name had been passed down the family ever since, and his mother too was called Ira. When she flew into one of her rages, his father would wink at the children and say, ‘Here comes the prophetess.’

  The bathroom door now burst open, and Ira Hath herself appeared, looking flustered. Unable to find the sleeve-holes of her dressing-gown, she had fought her way into the garment by sheer fury. The sleeves hung empty on either side, and her arms stuck out through burst seams.

  ‘It’s Pinpin’s test today,’ said Bo.

  ‘It’s what?’

  Ira Hath stared for a moment. Then she took Pinpin from Bowman and in her turn held her close in her arms, as if someone was trying to take her away.

  ‘My baby,’ she said. ‘My baby.’

  At breakfast there was no reference to the test until near the end. Then their father put away his book and got up from table a little earlier than usual and said, as if to no one in particular,

  ‘I suppose we’d better get ready.’

  Kestrel looked up, her eyes bright with determination.

  ‘I’m not coming,’ she said.

  Hanno Hath sighed, and rubbed his wrinkly cheeks with one hand.

  ‘I know, darling. I know.’

  ‘It’s not fair,’ said Kestrel, as if her father was making her go. And so in a way he was. Hanno Hath was so kind to his children, and understood so exactly what they felt, that they found it almost impossible to go against his wishes.

  A familiar smoky smell rose from the stove.

  ‘Oh, sagahog!’ exclaimed his wife.

  She had burned the toast again.

  The morning sun was low in the sky, and the high city walls cast a shadow over all Orange District, as the Hath family walked down the street to the Community Hall. Mr and Mrs Hath went in front, and Bowman and Kestrel came behind, with Pinpin between them holding a hand each. Other families with two-year-olds were making their way in the same direction, past the neat terraces of orange-painted houses. The Blesh family was ahead of them, and could be heard coaching their little boy as they went along.

  ‘One, two, three, four, who’s that at the door? Five, six, seven, eight, who’s that at the gate?’

  As they came into the main square, Mrs Blesh turned and saw them. She gave the little wave she always gave, as if she was their special friend, and waited for Mrs Hath to catch her up.

  ‘Can you keep a secret?’ she said in a whisper. ‘If our little one does well enough today, we’ll move up to Scarlet.’

  Mrs Hath thought for a moment.

  ‘Very bright, scarlet,’ she said.

  ‘And did you hear? Our Rufy was second in his class yesterday afternoon.’

  Mr Blesh called back,

  ‘Second? Second? Why not first? That’s what I want to know.’

  ‘Oh, you men!’ said Mrs Blesh. And to Mrs Hath, in her special-friend voice, ‘They can’t help it, can they? They have to win.’

  As she spoke these words, her slightly poppy-out eyes rested for a moment on Hanno Hath. Everyone knew that poor Hanno Hath hadn’t been promoted for three years now, though of course his wife never admitted how disappointed she must feel. Kestrel caught her pitying look, and it made her want to stick knives into Mrs Blesh’s body. But more than that, it made her want to hug her father, and cover his wrinkly-sad face with kisses. To relieve her feelings, she bombarded Mrs Blesh’s broad back with rude thoughts.

  Pocksicker! Pompaprune! Sagahog!

  At the entrance to the Community Hall, a lady Assistant Examiner sat checking names against a list. The Bleshes went first.

  ‘Is the little one clean?’ asked the Assistant Examiner. ‘Has he learned to control his bladder?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Mrs Blesh. ‘He’s unusually advanced for his age.’

  When it was Pinpin’s turn, the Assistant Examiner asked the same question.

  ‘Is she clean? Has she learned to control her bladder?’

  Mr Hath looked at Mrs Hath. Bowman looked at Kestrel. Through their minds floated pictures of Pinpin’s puddles on the kitchen floor. But this was followed by a kind of convulsion of family pride, which they all felt at the same time.

  ‘Control her bladder, madam?’ said Mrs Hath with a bright smile. ‘My daughter can widdle in time to the National Anthem.’

  The Assistant Examiner looked surprised, then checked the box marked CLEAN on her list.

  ‘Desk twenty-three,’ she said.

  The Community Hall was buzzing with activity. A great chalkboard at one end listed the names of the examinees, all ninety-seven of them, in alphabetical order. There was Pinpin’s name, looking unfamiliar in its full form: PINTO HATH. The Hath family formed a protective huddle round desk twenty-three while Mrs Hath removed Pinpin’s nappy. Now that she was down as clean it would be counted as cheating to leave her in a nappy. Pinpin herself was delighted. She liked to feel cool air on her bottom.

  A bell rang, and the big room fell quiet for the entrance of the Examiners. Ninety-seven desks, at each of which sat a two-year-old; behind each one, on benches, their parents and siblings. The sudden silence awed the little ones, and there wasn’t so much as a cry.

  The Examiners swept in, their scarlet gowns billowing, and stood on the podium in a single line of terrible magnificence. There were ten of them. At the centre was the tall figure of the Chief Examiner, Maslo Inch, the only one in the hall to wear the simple shining white garments of the highest rating.

  ‘Stand for the Oath of Dedication!’

  Everyone stood, parents lifting little ones to their feet. Together they chanted the words all knew by heart.

  ‘I vow to strive harder, to reach higher, and in every way to seek to make tomorrow better than today. For love of my Emperor and for the glory of Aramant
h!’

  Then they all sat down again, and the Chief Examiner made a short speech. Maslo Inch, still only in his mid-forties, had been recently elevated to the highest level: but so tall and powerful was his appearance, and so deep his voice, that he looked and acted as if he had been wearing white all his life. Hanno Hath, who had known Maslo Inch a long time, saw this with quiet amusement.

  ‘My friends,’ intoned the Chief Examiner, ‘what a special day this is, the first test day of your beloved child. How proud you must be to know that from today, your little son or daughter will have his or her own personal rating. How proud they will be, as they come to understand that by their own efforts they can contribute to your family rating.’ Here he raised a hand in friendly warning, and gave them all a grave look. ‘But never forget that the rating itself means nothing. All that matters is how you improve your rating. Better today than yesterday. Better tomorrow than today. That is the spirit that has made our city great.’

  The scarlet-gowned Examiners then fanned out across the front row of desks and began working their way down the lines. Maslo Inch, as Chief Examiner, remained on the podium like a tower, overseeing all. Inevitably his scanning gaze fell in time on Hanno Hath. A twinkle of recognition glowed for a moment in the corner of one eye, and then faded again as his gaze moved on. Hanno Hath shrugged to himself. He and Maslo Inch were exact contemporaries. They had been in the same class at school. But that was all long ago now.

  The tests were marked as they were completed, and the marks conveyed to the big chalkboard at the front. Quite soon, a ranking began to emerge among the infants. The Blesh child was close to the top, with 23 points out of a possible 30, a rating of 7.6. Because B came earlier than H, the Blesh family were finished before the Haths had begun, and Mrs Blesh came down the aisle with her triumphant infant in her arms to pass on the benefit of their experience.

  ‘The silly fellow left out number five,’ she explained. ‘One, two, three, four, six.’ She wagged a mock-angry finger at the child. ‘Four, five, six, you silly! You know that! I’m sure Pinto does.’

  ‘Actually, Pinpin can count to a million,’ said Kestrel.